GUWAHATI, Aug 29 - The Guwahati Municipal Corporation (GMC) is expending about 60 to 70 per cent budget of Municipal Solid Waste Management (MSWM) on the MSW collection system, but they don’t have an efficient collection system, stated the Department of Civil Engineering of IIT Kharagpur in its recently submitted “Integrated Waste Management System Report for Guwahati City”.

The GMC entrusted IIT Kharagpur to formulate a waste management strategy for Guwahati. A team from the institute had already carried out a survey in the city and submitted the report.

The report said that due to lack of proper knowledge and infrastructure to collect and dispose waste, not only Guwahati, but every city in India, today faces the problem of managing solid waste. In order to overcome these difficulties and make the city sustainable, the Government of India has initiated the ‘Smart City’ programme throughout the country and Guwahati has been selected as one of them. Making the city smart is nothing but managing the problems present with the help of institutional, physical, social and economical infrastructure.

The IIT Kharagpur, in its report advised that to achieve the goal, the Integrated Solid Waste Management (ISWM) approach can be used in Guwahati, which can be defined as a complete waste reduction, collection, recycling, treatment and disposal system.

To overcome the problems of waste management in Guwahati, IIT Kharagpur has also mentioned some plans in its report. All these plans are to be formulated item-wise and on short-term, medium-term and long-term basis.

The report has stressed development of an engineered landfill at the existing Deepor Beel dump site, which will be used for disposal of waste left after treatment processing (e.g. residuals from waste treatment facilities and inert materials which cannot be treated) using different treatment plants. The focus will be on proper environment control to ensure no adverse environmental impact on the Deepor Beel and its surrounding area.

In the present dumping ground of GMC, every day around 500 tonnes of waste are dumped by the civic body. Of that garbage, 50 tonnes are used in the compost plant situated there and the remaining around 450 tonnes remain unused, posing a serious threat to the Deepor Beel, the only Ramsar site in the State.

The report also said GMC in partnership with IIT Kharagpur is going to prepare the design of the engineered landfill for the dump site. The design will ensure the components needed to prevent any impact on the Deepor Beel and its surrounding area. The engineered landfill, to come up in the present dumping ground of GMC, will have a design life of 25 to 40 years based on the site availability.